Sandra Cisneros

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Sandra Cisneros Sandra Cisneros Sandra Cisneros is a writer whose exuberant prose and spirited activism have made her one of literature’s best-loved figures. Among the first Latinas ever published by a major house, she has tackled subjects such as race, class, border-crossing and feminism with empathy and a language that is unique in American letters. Her debut novel, “The House on Mango Street,” sold more than six million copies, was translated into more than 20 languages, and has become required reading in high schools and colleges across the United States. Subsequent endeavors and acclaim elevated Cisneros into a cultural icon. She has published in every genre, including the poetry collections “My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1987) and “Loose Woman” (1994); the 1991 short story collection “Woman Hollering Creek”; the 1994 dual- language children’s book “Hairs/Pelitos”; the 2002 novel “Caramelo”; and the 2012 picture book for adults “Have You Seen Marie?” Library Journal deemed her latest book, “A House of My Own,” the best memoir of 2015. Although storytelling is her chief pursuit, Cisneros doesn’t just nurture the artist within. Soon after the MacArthur Foundation awarded her a Genius Grant in 1995, she established the Macondo Foundation, which champions writers around the world who share her commitment to social justice. In addition to holding workshops and readings, the Macondo also offers financial support for artists “in need of time to heal their body, heart or spirit.” She also organized her fellow Latina-Latino “MacArturos” into an ongoing group of doers who meet regularly to inspire communities in need. Cisneros’ honors include an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Lannan Foundation Literary Award, an American Book Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and a Texas Medal for the Arts. When she won UNC’s prestigious Thomas Wolfe Prize in 2014, more than 600 readers gathered from across the Triangle for her keynote address. For outstanding accomplishment in the field of creative writing, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is pleased to confer on Sandra Cisneros the degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa. .
Recommended publications
  • Interviewing Sandra Cisneros: Living on the Frontera*
    INTERVIEWING SANDRA CISNEROS: LIVING ON THE FRONTERA* Pilar Godayol Nogue Sandra Cisneros is the most powerful representative of the group of young Chicana writers who emerged in the 19805. Her social and political involvement is considerably different from that of Anaya and Hinojosa, the first generation of Chicano writers writing in English. She has a great ability to capture a multitude of voices in her fiction. Although she was trained as a poet, her greatest talents lie in storytelling when she becomes a writer of fiction. Sandra Cisneros was bom in Chicago in 1954. Her first book of fiction, The House on Mango Street (1984), is about growing up in a Latino neighbourhood in Chicago. Her second book of short stories, Woman Hollering Creek (1991), confinns her stature as a writer of great talent. She has also published two books of poetry, My WICked Wicked Ways (1987) and Loose Woman (1994). My interest in her work sprang from her mixing two languages, sometimes using the syntax of one language with the vocabulary of another, at other times translating literally Spanish phrases or words into English, or even including Spanish words in the English text. This fudging of the roles of writer and translator reflects the world she describes in her novels where basic questions of identity and reality are explored. Pilar Godayol. Your work includes mixed-language use. How do you choose when to write a particular word in English or Spanish? Sandra Cisneros. I'm always aware when I write something in English, if it sounds chistoso. I'm aware when someone is saying something in English, or when I am saying something, of how interesting it sounds if I translate it.
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  • Unworking Community in Sandra Cisneros' the House on Mango Street
    Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos, nº 18 (2014) Seville, Spain. ISSN 1133-309-X, pp 47-59 “GUIDING A COMMUNITY:” UNWORKING COMMUNITY IN SANDRA CISNEROS’ THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET GERARDO RODRÍGUEZ SALAS Universidad de Granada [email protected] Received 6th March 2014 Accepted 7th April 2014 KEYWORDS Community; Cisneros; Chicano literature; immanence; transcendence PALABRAS CLAVE Comunidad; Cisneros; literatura chicana; inmanencia; transcendencia ABSTRACT The present study revises communitarian boundaries in the fiction of Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros. Using the ideas of key figures in post-phenomenological communitarian theory and connecting them with Anzaldúa and Braidotti’s concepts of borderland and nomadism, this essay explores Cisneros’ contrast between operative communities that crave for the immanence of a shared communion and substantiate themselves in essentialist tropes, and inoperative communities that are characterized by transcendence or exposure to alterity. In The House on Mango Street (1984) the figure of the child is the perfect starting point to ‘unwork’ (in Nancy’s terminology) concepts such as spatial belonging, nationalistic beliefs, linguistic constrictions, and gender roles through a selection of tangible imagery which, from a female child’s pseudo-innocent perspective, aims to generate an inoperative community beyond essentialist tropes, where individualistic and communal drives are ambiguously intertwined. Using Cisneros’ debut novel as a case study, this article studies the female narrator as embodying both
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  • A Case for Relational Identity in Sandra Cisneros's the House on Mango Street
    Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2008-11-08 Rethinking the Historical Lens: A Case for Relational Identity in Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street Annalisa Wiggins Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Wiggins, Annalisa, "Rethinking the Historical Lens: A Case for Relational Identity in Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street" (2008). Theses and Dissertations. 1649. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1649 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Rethinking the Historical Lens: A Case for Relational Identity in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street by Annalisa Waite Wiggins A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of English Brigham Young University December 2008 BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY GRADUATE COMMITTEE APPROVAL of a thesis submitted by Annalisa Waite Wiggins This thesis has been read by each member of the following graduate committee and by majority vote has been found to be satisfactory. ______________________________ ____________________________________ Date Trenton L. Hickman, Chair
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  • 6Th Grade- the House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros 7Th Grade-Schooled by Gordon Kormon 8Th Grade- Sarny by Gary Paulsen
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  • 55-Chicana Experience on Borderlands in Sandra Cisneros' the House on Mango Street and Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera: the New Mestiza
    R u m e l i D E Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi 2 0 2 0 . Ö 8 ( K a s ı m )/ 7 0 5 Sandra Cisneros’un Mango Sokağı’ndaki Ev ve Gloria Anzaldua’nın Sınır Bölgeleri/ Hudut: Yeni Melez Kadın romanlarında Meksikalı Kadınların Sınır Deneyimi / A. Bayal (705-719. s.) 55-Chicana experience on Borderlands in Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street and Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza Aslınur BAYAL1 APA: Bayal, A. (2020). Chicana experience on Borderlands in Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street and Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, (Ö8), 705-719. DOI: 10.29000/rumelide.822504. Abstract This paper aims to suggest how Chicanas in The House on Mango Street and in Borderland/La Frontera: New Mestiza construct their own identity on the physical and psychological borderland between Mexico and The States segregating and separating individuals because of language, culture, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and class. How they achieve their self-fulfillment at the end of their odyssey is also presented in this paper. The House on Mango Street and Borderlands/La Frontera New Mestiza are the epitomes of border writing dwelling on the tumult and challenges of physical and psychological borderland between the States and Mexico and explaining the social and economic conditions of the subjects. Borderland dwellers experience illegal migration, economic disparity, social and financial unrest, sense of displacement and frustration. They have hybrid identities and use hybrid language of English and Spanish. This paper discusses male oppression and domestication, American ideological dominance over Mexico and a quest for a dignified life in both novels.
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  • NATIONAL ENDOWMENT for the ARTS Reader Resources
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